blog #420 >> Catching Up

...because I'm waaaaaaay behind on my blogging!
Once I get this far behind I just keep on putting it off because I know I'll just have one more thing to post tomorrow, and I might as well post everything at once. So this will be a very long post in fairly random order.



Here's the cherry jam and canned cherries I made this month. And I obviously didn't have time to post a blog about them right after I made them because I had to clean up my messy kitchen. That's the part I don't like about canning, the sticky sugary mess I need to tackle afterwords and the multitude of dishes that need to be washed, (by hand.) It's days like this that I'm glad I've got a kitchen door. I can just close it and not think about it for a couple of hours. Then I can come back in with the magic cleaning apron, and it's all sparkling clean before I know it.

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Yesterday I went up Long View to visit the Terry-Taylor garage sale with my sister Carrie. Little did I know that it was the largest, most amazing neighborhood garage sale I've ever been to! EVERYONE comes out for this! It's like a garage sale, meets fair, meets strip mall. Every house has something out front, from a hot dog stand, to used scooters, to charity drives, to election candidates handing out fliers. Even if people didn't have anything to sell they'd sit out on their front porches in lawn chairs and watch all the people go by. And everything was such a good deal! We went a little later in the day, so at that point people were practically giving stuff away, just so they wouldn't have to cart it to the dump. And after it started to rain, people WERE giving everything away. I got all this stuff for $10 (and then I spent another $10 on food.) I'm such a sucker for young entrepreneurs' lemonade stands and the kettle corn for charity.
However, I didn't realize what I was getting into when I left for this "garage sale." After all, "How big can one garage sale be?" And unfortunately I was not wearing appropriate shoes for the occasion. Now today, I feel like I maybe limping for the rest of my life. Or at least I'm not in any hurry to be putting shoes back on my feet. Oh, cozy slippers!

Here are some ice skates I got. (Another pair of unpractical shoes.)

And I found this cute red bowling bag for my sister. The shoes are even her size and the bowling ball already had her name on it! It was destiny!
(Please note if I were speaking this there would be a sarcastic tone on the word "destiny.")

Then we headed back to her house and made some home-made funnel cakes. They're so easy, and delicious! And they're much cheaper than the ones you buy a the fair. Find the recipe here.

And I still think my sister has the cutest kitten in the world, and I don't usually like cats.

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Oh, and here's the monthly garden update.
The sad thing is I think that was the last thing I posted.


As you can see it's doing much better than I previously thought it would. I'm getting lots of zucchini and I'm getting more strawberries and peas now than I did in June. Everything has been late this year, but at least it's coming up. I also reseeded the radishes for "hopefully" a second crop.


I am also VERY pleased with my striped beets! I think I'm going to try making pickled beets next week with the rest of them. These are definitely seeds I'll be planting again.




And I'm happy to announce that the peppers are not a loss, I've got at least one coming up!

But I've yet to get a red tomato.

And even if my little fairytale eggplant never produces an eggplant, it's still got lots of pretty flowers.

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I thought I was missing something. I almost forgot to post these!
Here are a couple of my recent sewing projects.

I made this purple skirt from some scrap fabric that Trina gave me. Thanks!


And I finally finished the "tie" skirt. I have to say that the hardest part was finding all those ties, and taking a picture of it. Unless it's on, it really just looks like a bunch of ties sewn together and not much like a skirt. However, it's pretty phenomenal on, I just wish it didn't get quite so much attention from strangers on the street. And I wish I hadn't made it a little too big. I need to sew better belt loops on it.

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And since this song has been stuck in my head the past month. Here it is too. I love this band so much!



Cheers!
T